


With Our Bare Hands

by theonewiththeeyebrows



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hale Family Feels, MTV Teen Wolf Cribs, Mama Stilinski Feels, Season 3 Non-Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 15:16:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theonewiththeeyebrows/pseuds/theonewiththeeyebrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teen Wolf did that Cribs Behind-the-Scenes video with Tyler Hoechlin taking about how he built the porch with his dad. Then I wanted fic. But there weren't enough. So I wrote my own last year. And I didn't post it. </p><p>Until Now.</p><p>Pre-show Derek Hale + Family. Pre-Kate Argent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Our Bare Hands

**Author's Note:**

> This is non-compliant with Season 3 of the show because it doesn't have Cora. But I hope you read it anyway.
> 
> Originially written for the Teen Wolf Superbang (Minibang) but I never finished or posted any of my finished fic.

Derek was born on the wrong side of the moon -- at least that's what Mémère used to say every time his nose scrunched up in what would eventually play out to be a tantrum. She'd laugh and bend down to kiss his nose and Derek would huff at her. "If you make that face any longer, it'll get stuck there permanently," she'd say and Derek would cross his arms over his chest and stamp his foot in annoyance. Laura always joked that he'd been born scowling, and that if he was one of Snow White's dwarfs, his name would have been Grumpy. 

Laura and he were twins, but she was born twenty minutes before he was. She's always been a ray of sunshine, and he'd always been a cloudy sky. Mémère said that it wasn't unusual for wolf twins to be complete opposites, like night and day. They look alike though -- thick black hair and tempestuous eyebrows over brilliant green eyes, but where Laura has a mischievous sparkle in her eyes and an impish smile dancing on her face, Derek has a seriousness that his eyebrows dramatize and a frown that feels like the weight of the world bearing down on him.

Laura is eleven when her wolf rises and Derek is jealous because he's not allowed to go running on the full moon. They've had lessons with Pépé about human and wolf etiquette since they were three years old. Not all children borne of werewolves are wolves, and it is important to understand that packs are diverse and inclusive, but more than that, it is important to understand how to behave in a world where they are an unknown minority. Laura's lessons change then and Mémère takes Laura under her wing. She is the second in line, after Mama, to becoming Alpha. Mémère says that Laura's wolf is strong and that she will make a beautiful leader when the time comes. Derek seethes for days but Laura never makes him feel like he's inferior, so he stops. 

Derek feels the wolf rising on the Snow Moon, after his thirteenth birthday. It starts with the subtle changes in his mother's smell and he has to ask Laura what it means. She laughs at him, head thrown back and hair dancing in the wind, but she doesn't tell him why -- _she's annoying_. 

A part of him wants to tell his parents that his wolf is awakening so that he can run with the pack, but a bigger part of him doesn't them to know because he'd have to start taking more lessons and he'd much rather go swimming in the lake. When Cedric, Uncle Peter's youngest son, takes his Batman comic without asking, his eyes flash and he's got the boy on the ground claws poised at his neck, the choice is taken out of his hands -- his father grounds him for it and his lessons with Pépé are doubled. He loves his Pépé, but he is incredibly strict during lessons; he'd much rather learn from Mémère, because she's always kissing him and making him his favorite treats. When he tells Laura how he feels, she gives him a strange look and says, "There's a reason Mémère is the Alpha. Trust me, you'd rather learn from Pépé."

Pépé teaches Derek about scents after the Worm Moon, because that is when winter starts turning to Spring, and the smells in the woods start to ripen and bloom. It's then that he learns he's going to be an older brother and finally understands why Laura had laughed at him. His parents don't tell him their news till June, when his mother's belly starts to swell and Laura becomes fiercely protective. Derek thinks its silly that they didn't tell him earlier, he _is_ a teenager now and his wolf has blossomed. Derek has even touched Crystal Wellington's boobies when she asked him if she could touch his wiener, so he's practically an adult. He doesn't know why his parents don't seem to think so, and when he tells Laura this, she growls at him and tells him never to let another girl touch him again. "Don't you remember what Mémère keeps telling us?" she says, eyes flashing a brilliant blue that makes Derek bare his neck to her. 

Mémère would often tell them moon stories at night. After they were tucked in bed like bugs in rugs, she'd tell them folktales because she said it was the best way to learn how to be a wolf. The stories were always beautiful and poetic and made Derek long for the honey-eyed love that would make his soul sing songs of the mountain. Or for adventures with Laura and Cedric that taught them about the meaning of family -- of pack. 

May has been hot and sticky and the lake gives them much needed respite — it is only going to get worse before autumn turns the leaves red. Derek's dad fires up the grill they'd installed by the lake, and his mom sits on the picnic blanket sipping her lemonade. Cedric and Laura gang up against him, catapulting into the water behind him and splashing him with the lake water. As the month wears on though, Pépé's lessons start cutting into his lake time. He's learning to regulate his body temperature, and Pépé says that the heat wave is the best time to learn. He sits on the banks of the lake seething, watching Laura and Cedric enjoy the cool water. When Laura notices, she teases him from the lake. He flops onto his back then, arms crossed and staring resolutely at sky trying to find shapes in them like the other kids at school do. It is mundane and boring and Derek doesn't have much patience for it, but he's stubborn to the point of it being a serious personality flaw- so he finds one hundred rabbits in the sky before the family's packing up to go home. 

In June his dad has a huge cookout and Derek is forced to help -- "It's good training for controlling your emotions, Derek," Pépé says when he asks for more training instead. Derek scowls as he passes his dad the hamburger patties Mémère made that morning -- a secret family recipe. His mother pours out the freshly made strawberry-lemonade into mason jars for everybody and Derek watches the round piece of lemon dance in the liquid, bumping into the ice. He wonders how those thin slices aren't completely decimated by the hard chunks of ice. When they're all sitting at the picnic table in the backyard, paper plates in front of them, his mom declares that she wants a porch with a swing. "So that I can sit there with the baby and watch my pack flourish." 

"More work?" Derek grumbles out loud, the first one to protest, only to earn himself a growl from his mother that sets him on edge. Nobody else voices any complaints they may have had.

They start the day after the new moon. Mémère says it's good luck and Derek's dad breaks out his old tool box. They measure the house first and Uncle Peter stands and laughs at them with an ice-cold beer in his hand until Mémère yells at him, and he grabs the other end of the tape from Derek's dad's hands and helping them. After that, Uncle Peter is conspicuously absent during the time that Derek and his dad build the porch. According to Andy Johnson building a porch takes about a week after the concrete foundation cures, so Derek estimates that, with his new-found wolf-strength, they'd be able to finish it in three days. He's wrong. Miles comes home the day after they start. Miles is Derek’s uncle, but he’s only six years older than him, so he’s always been just ‘Miles’. Miles is strong and suave and even at eighteen he’s got a way with women that Derek is envious of. He charms his way out of Porch duty and spends the day lazing around the pond with Laura and Cedric, both of whom worship the ground he walks on. With Laura, Cedric and Miles at the pond, Mémère and Pépé tutoring the young Hale wolves _and_ the Pack from the neighboring city, Peter absent, and Aunt Liesl at his mom's every beck and call, it's just Derek and his Dad.

They spend a long time setting up a box to pour a concrete slab foundation and as they wait for the concrete to cure over the next few days, Derek’s dad teaches him how to determine how much load the porch could hold. Derek slowly begins to enjoy the labor, he enjoys spending time with his dad out in the front yard, measuring and sawing wood. He enjoys the quiet time he gets to reflect on his lessons with Pépé, and even though Derek’s father is a man of few words, there is a lot that Derek learns for him on those quiet sunny days. Derek’s dad is a civil engineer and while Derek has never considered engineering as something he’d be good at, he is beginning to give it an honest chance. He’s always been good with his hands because it gives his mind some much needed clarity, and the monotony of the work is soothing in the way that running had always been for him. By the time the concrete cures, Derek and his dad have all the wood ready, and they slowly put the deck together. It takes them two days to assemble the deck, and after it is complete, his mother makes Derek’s favorite veal quiche for dinner the next day.

The roof is more challenging than they had anticipated. With only one person to hold up the large planks of wood and one to nail it in place, they break seventeen planks of wood before Aunt Liesl takes pity on them and blackmails Miles into helping them. Miles is allergic to his shirt and often strips it during their porch building sessions. Miles winks and smirks at Derek when he catches Derek scowling at him and it just makes D scowl harder. The roof takes them twice as long as the porch did, even with the additional help, and they’re done just in time for the full moon. The biggest reward, though, is when Derek’s dad smiles at him proudly and claps him on the back with a “Well done, son!” and Derek blushes brightly.

The next couple of days are a lull, and Derek misses the feel of the wood in his hands and order that his brain had created during his time building the porch. He finds himself running much more than he was used too, and it just didn’t help the same way anymore now that his brain had cataloged a better activity. On the fifth day that Derek runs himself ragged in the hopes that it would give him the piece of mind that he’d wanted, he borrows Miles’ laptop and looks for a new project.

When Derek and his dad bring home a pile of new lumber, Derek’s mom looks at them quizzically until Derek’s dad tells her about Derek’s plans. His mom kisses him on the cheek and tells him she’s proud of him. It takes them a day to build the porch swing, and two days to build the coffee table. He buys himself a journal after that, and finds himself doodling designs for furniture in them. After the next full moon, Derek and his father build a crib from an old oak tree they cuts down, and by the new moon he’s built his mom a rocking chair from the small cluster of cherry trees by old river. He slowly starts taking on more of the work while his dad watches over Derek, curled up around Derek’s mother on the porch swing. Pépé takes to giving him his lessons while he’s building or repairing furniture, because its the only time he isn’t on edge.

He’s working on the final carvings on the rocking chair when his mother goes into labor. It’s day of the full moon, and there’s a panicked undercurrent to the way everyone moves. When he moves towards the passenger seat of the car, Pépé stops him. “It’s too close to the moon, and we haven’t worked on your control yet — with the baby about to come, your wolf isn’t going to go down without a fight, so it’s best if you stay home with me. We’ll finish your mom’s rocking chair, set it up in her room and prepare for the moon.” Derek bows his head in submission and kisses his mom on her cheek before he shuts the car door and watches the car pull out of the driveway.

Derek shifts when a howl pierces the air just as the harvest moon rises. 

The baby is tiny when Derek goes to visit his mother and his brand new baby sister — Cora Lisbeth Hale. Cora is tiny and wrinkly and Derek adores her from the moment he lays eyes on her through the viewing window in the neonatal unit. There is a little boy with a shaved head standing next to him, cooing at Cora and it makes Derek growl. But when he turns to face him, the boy grins up at him, gap-toothed, and Derek can’t help but say “That’s Cora, she’s my baby sister.” 

The boy, Stiles, loops his arm through Derek’s. “She’s so cute. My mom loved coming here and looking at the babies. She said it was the circle of life — everyday someone dies and someone else is born. I wanted to make sure that the person who replaced my mom was awesome.” He smiles sadly, and Derek can see the sadness in his eyes. The boy talks big for someone so small and Derek hugs the boy to keep him warm when he shivers. Derek’s mom is discharged at the end of the week, and Derek doesn’t see the boy again, not for a few years.

He transfers into Mr. Salvatore’s shop class. Katherine Argent, a senior at the neighboring community college, is Mr. Salvatore’s teaching assistant and she smiles at him brightly every time he brings a more complex project to class. He tells her about the projects that he’s already worked on, and she laughs at him because the projects for class are so much simpler than the ones he’s already made. She ruffles Derek’s hair, and it makes his chest swell with pride and his heart race a little faster. 

If she sees his eyes flash, she doesn’t say anything. Not until it’s too late.

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't very happy with this when I wrote it. So if you like it, let me know.


End file.
